NSW: Police roll out alcohol awareness campaign across NSW

AAP General News (Australia)
12-21-2009
NSW: Police roll out alcohol awareness campaign across NSW

By Belinda Cranston

SYDNEY, Dec 21 AAP - A campaign that aims to crack down on the supply of alcohol to
minors is needed to change community attitudes towards drinking, police say.

While underaged drinking in pubs and clubs has declined across NSW, an alarming number
of young people at locations including parks, shopping centres and beaches are negatively
impacted by the effects of alcohol, Police Minister Michael Daley told reporters on Monday.

"These people have got their alcohol from somewhere," he said.

"They haven't gotten it themselves, someone has bought it for them."

Extra police will patrol areas outside licensed premises such as bottle shops to stem
a growing concern that minors are offering money to adults passing by to buy alcohol for
them.

Anyone who does supply a minor with alcohol can be issued with an on-the-spot fine of $1,100.

If a case is taken to court, the offender faces fines of up to $11,000 and/or 12 months
imprisonment, Mr Daley said.

It is ok for a parent or carer to serve small amounts of alcohol to minors in the home
on special occasions, Mr Daley said, but "It is another thing entirely for mum or dad
to buy a case of grog for their 16- or 17-year-old son and send him out to a party.

"It's not acceptable and it's a crime."

Police hope the Supply Means Supply campaign will change attitudes in the community
towards drinking.

"We want friends and family to take some personal responsibility for their actions
when it comes to alcohol - and that includes ensuring that we do not expose our younger
people to alcohol before they can make responsible decisions," Mr Daley said.

Professor Ian Webster, Director of the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation,
said emergency department admissions at hospitals were largely alcohol related.

"In our public hospitals a huge amount of the work that goes on there is related to
alcohol," he told reporters.

He believes 70 per cent of police work is also alcohol-related.

While young people have strong bodies and can tolerate quantities of alcohol that adults
can't, "their brains and minds are extraordinarily vulnerable," Prof Webster said.

"Their brains can be directly affected by alcohol, and on to their memory, their behaviours,
their thinking, their learning processes..."

Flow-on effects include acts of violence being committed and road traffic accidents,
Prof Webster said.

"To be involved in alcohol early in a young person's life predicts their likelihood
of continuing to drink alcohol, and more especially, a problem with mental health," he
said.

"I can tell you that alcohol is one of the strongest predictors of risks of suicide
in all of the population, but particularly for young people."

"It is a depressant. If people are at all sad or suffering from a depressive illness,
the addition of alcohol to that makes it worse."

Prof Webster believes alcohol plays a part in 30 per cent of suicides.

Television commercials made for the Supply Means Supply campaign will be shown in regional
NSW from Monday, including Griffith, Port Macquarie, Lismore, Ballina, on the Central
Coast, Wollongong, Dubbo and in Goulburn.

The advertisements can also be viewed on YouTube.

AAP bc/hn/cjb/de

KEYWORD: ALCOHOL WRAP

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